Continental collection development

The Folger Shakespeare Library seeks primary source materials and related reference works in European civilization in the Renaissance and early modern period, especially:

• as it helps illuminate English culture
• as it illuminates reading and writing habits (e.g. writing manuals, writing tables, annotated copies, Continental books with English provenance)
• as it builds existing core collections such as: festival books, herbals, Reformation, Italian drama, emblem books
• as it comes from significant printers such as Aldus Manutius, de Bry, de Colines, the Estiennes, Fine, Froben, Giolito, Plantin, and Verard
  • Priority gaps to be filled: items on desiderata lists (after the lists have been reviewed)

n.b. Desiderata card files and typewritten lists in the Acquisitions Office need to be made available in electronic form (and checked against existing holdings).

Continental subject areas:

Original language of translations

• for English-language translations of STC and Wing period

History

• Political
  • French political pamphlets, especially late 16th through 17th century, including Mazarinades
  • Dutch pamphlets, especially 16th and 17th century (based on Knuttel catalog)
  • contemporary writings about European courts and rulers, especially in France, Germany, and Italy; instructions for rulers
• Military
  • military organization and campaigning
  • firearms and explosives
• Social
  • educational manuals
  • conduct books
  • how-to manuals (tailoring, lace-making)
  • dictionaries and phrase books

History of Reading and Writing

• writing manuals, writing tables
• books and pamphlets on censorship and revealing censorship practices

Literature

(excluding Drama; see under Theater)

• emblem books
• poetry
• authors especially collected:
  • Ariosto
  • Cervantes
  • Erasmus
  • Montaigne
  • Tasso

Religion

• German Reformation with emphasis on Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Zwingli and other reformers on the continent
• French church history with emphasis on the Edict of Nantes, its revocation, and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
• Catholic church, especially as related to Protestantism, and English Catholic expatriots

Science

• continental herbals, 15th through 17th centuries
• major treatises on medicine and human anatomy (see desiderata)
• natural history (see desiderata)
• major titles in architecture and the development of technology (see desiderata)
• accounting and arithmetic (as it relates to business and commerce)

Theater and Spectacle

• festival books, especially from Germany, the Low Countries, France, and Italy
• French drama, especially 17th-century: editions of Moliere, Corneille and others
• Italian drama of the 16th and 17th centuries: comprehensively
• Classical drama printed in the 16th and 17th centuries
• Dutch 17th-century drama and theater history
• Spanish drama, especially Lope de Vega, and Calderon
• books on the history and development of the theater in Europe
• continental editions of Shakespeare, see Shakespeare collection development.

Travel and Exploration

• 16th and 17th-century accounts of travels by Europeans to lands outside of Europe, including Jesuit travel narratives, and books with maps
• geographical books with maps for European countries and cities
• accounts of Continental travelers to England
• navigation